Padres executive isn’t backing down from criticism of Matt Kemp

Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler isn’t backing down.

Fowler, speaking to fans at a “town hall” meeting Wednesday, referred to Matt Kemp’s open letter to Braves fans as a “bunch of B.S.”

The executive, in an email exchange, essentially repeated his comments to me on Friday.

Kemp, traded by the Padres to the Braves last Sunday, subsequently admitted in an article for The Players’ Tribune that he had developed a reputation as “selfish, lazy and a bad teammate.”

That reputation dates to Kemp’s tenure with the Dodgers, before the Padres obtained him for catcher Yasmani Grandal in a five-player deal on Dec. 18, 2014.

So on Friday, I followed up with Fowler on his remarks.

I wrote to Fowler, “Kemp’s reputation was not exactly a secret within the game when he was with the Dodgers. The Padres made the decision to acquire him. To some degree, shouldn’t you have known what you were getting?”